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Exit poll drubbing: Cong rushes to defend Rahul
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 13
After the exit poll drubbing, the Congress today went all out to absolve party vice-president Rahul Gandhi of any responsibility for the defeat. It, however, said a victory would surely be attributed to him as he was the party’s principal campaigner.

The defence for Rahul in the event of a predicted electoral doom for the party came from top ministers led by Jairam Ramesh and Kamal Nath, the former being Congress’ point person for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and Rahul’s adviser.

“Rahul ran an indefatigable campaign addressing around 125 rallies. He went to each state and brought spirit to our campaign. But the campaign progressed at various levels. Ultimately, it was for the party organisation to translate the positive impact of Gandhis’ campaign into votes,” said Jairam Ramesh, Rural Development Minister in the outgoing government and General Election coordinator for the Congress.

He said in the event of victory – which the Congress is hopeful of – Rahul would be “rewarded” as he was the party’ stellar campaigner; but the reverse wouldn’t be true.

Similar sentiments were echoed by Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath who said Rahul was not part of the government and that “any poor showing must be shared by the government which could not convey to the people its achievements”.

The statement, read crudely, implies that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as leader of the government could not communicate the programmes well. Earlier also, Nath had once blamed the PM for not communicating enough.

With the “insulate Rahul from defeat” line taking a clear shape, news is that he will hold a meeting with Congress spokespersons on May 15 to discuss the strategy of the party on the eve of results. The point of discussion will be – what the party’s public stand will be if it does well, and even otherwise.

That apart, the party is already debating the line of argument to be taken if the exit poll results are correct.

Jairam Ramesh gave some hint about the justifications the Congress could offer – “first, the Congress was handicapped as it could not make BJP’s communal ideology central to its campaign because the BJP was not in the fray, only its PM nominee Narendra Modi was”; second, “Modi out-funded the Congress insofar as spending on the campaign goes”.

“We did not have a single front page advertisement in any major national daily while they had several. It was like they were batting body line. We were playing cricket and they were not even trying to play cricket. They spent astronomical, obscene sums of money; we just could not match them. Our level of spending was peanuts compared to what Modi spent.”

The three-pronged justification (the government failed to communicate its policies; Modi ran a highly individualistic campaign preventing Congress from targeting the BJP; and the BJP out-funded the Congress on campaign expenditure) came a day after party president Sonia Gandhi met Congress general secretaries in charges of states to get their estimate on the seats being won.

Except one, none of the other four exit polls gave the Congress more than 100 seats. The party’s worst previous performance was 114 in 1999.

Strategic failure

• The UPA government failed to publicise its policies properly
• Modi ran a highly individualistic campaign, preventing Congress from targeting BJP
• The saffron party out-funded the Congress on campaign expenditure

Jairam Ramesh, Rural development minister